Thursday, 28 May 2015

Okay, so here's the situation. It's Finale Week, and there are still lots and lots of gears and steam and punk left to see. Besides that, there are still 4 HGs left in the house: Ashleigh; Brittnee; Godfrey; and Sarah. Sarah is HoH and has put Godfrey and Ashleigh on the block. They have still not played for the final PoV.

Arisa gathers the last 4 to give them some not-so-surprising news. There is a special eviction in less than an hour. It's not really a surprise - after all, both we and they know one of them has to go. But in order to evict one of them, they must first play for the 2nd most important competition of the season. The final PoV. Sure, Sarah has secured a seat in the final 3, but she has absolutely no power in determining who leaves in this eviction. With only the 4 HGs remaining, only the PoV holder will vote to evict. It's all that matters.

This PoV is aptly called, "Fast Track to Finale", and it's a model railroader's dream. To be exact, it's

an O-gauge model railroader's dream. They're the bigger scale. Is it sad I know that? Anyway, two trains circle a perimeter track, with each pulling cars displaying numbers. The players must match the number on the train to a description found on the rooftop of houses, then line them up on each side of "Main Street". The descriptions refer to a day in the house or a number concerning an event. To make it even harder, there are extra houses with descriptions that don't belong. The house guest with the fastest time wins.

Brittnee's doomed if she does, doomed if she doesn't. Oh hell, she's just plain screwed.

Easy-peasy, right? Well you have to have a great memory and stay cool under pressure. Some can't handle it, and in this case it's Brittnee who looses it. In fact, she gives up. What makes it so sad is Brittnee would be the replacement nom if either Godfrey or Ashleigh win. That's exactly what happens. Ashleigh wins PoV, takes herself off the block and Sarah is frced to put Brittnee up as the renom. And since Ashleigh is the PoV holder and the only HG eligible to vote, she smartly decides t save Godfrey and votes out Brittnee. After all, Brittnee not only won too many comps, but is also favoured by the fans who voted for her in the Special Have Not Twist. As she leaves, Brittnee says, "I was a pawn, but I am leaving a Queen".

Which reminds me. Can people just stop calling these girls "Queens"??? Please. I mean, seriously? Ugh.

Arisa has one more twist, one more special announcement. She gathers Ashleigh, Godfrey and Sarah together to tell them the obvious again. There will be 10 Jury members and that's no good. There could be a tie with no means of breaking it. One of them has to go. So she sends the Final 3 into the Vault where they will stay until they can mutually agree on an evictee.

There it is. Sassy Ashy.

Oh sure, It starts out fine, but negotiations quickly break down when Godfrey points out he has no guaranteed vote on the jury because he made no strong alliances. Then Ashy gets sassy says "These are MY people", while holding up the pictures of Zach and Pilar. So we are left with the cliffhanger: who will they agree to evict? At this rate, they could be in the Vault for another month.

The Finale intro was an endless recap of the season. The only thing bearable about it was Arisa's appearance in her finale outfit. Gorgeous as usual in a dress that fit in comfortably with the steampunk season 3 house. But enough of that. Let's get to the 3 comps that determine the final HoH.

It's a good thing Arisa has nice knees

Yay! God saved the world! Move over Bruce Willis.

The first comp is called "The End of the World" and once again, Trevor Boris outdid himself. I mean, really! How the hell do they pull these sets off? This one is supposed to look like some apocalyptic future where the HGs must keep a bin filled with sand in order to save the world from destruction. I don't know in what scenario that would ever play itself out. Maybe some sort of sandworm aliens have attacked earth. Maybe the HGs have to maintain a layer of sand on the surface of the Earth to protect it from solar flares. In any case, this is an endurance comp. And just to make it extra apocalypsy, there are bursts of fire, earthquakes and ash falling everywhere. Nice. They must fill their buckets from the bottom of the flue, then run up the stairs to pour it back in the top. So they want to fill the bucket until it's overflowing, then run as fast as possible up the stairs. Two at a time if they can. Godfrey says, "I was made for this." He knows he has this one over Ashleigh and Sarah. He of course wins it - Sarah and Ashleigh give up when their bins are next to empty. They also cry a lot and tears don't mix with sand very well.

The second comp is played by only Ashleigh and Sarah and is called "The Final Frontier". It's a timed

Ashleigh really grinds Sarah's gears with this win.

trivia-based puzzle on a giant gear. Of course it is. They must put events in order, with each event connecting the two house guests who shared in that event. It's basically the same as last season's 2nd comp, except it's on a vertical gear instead of planks on the floor. And because it's vertical, they must push a huge lever to turn the gear in order to connect all the events. Sarah knows if she doesn't win this one her fate in the house will be out of her hands. So, of course, Ashleigh wins.

Before we get to the third and deciding comp, we are treated to an update on the Jury and an obligatory visit by a special advisor in the form of a previous BB winner. This time it's Ian Terry. The Jury is in awe, especially Jordan who falls to the ground praising the BB Gods. Allelujah! They are soooo #blessed! And they should be. Ian sure can deliver his script lines very drolly. He says he has been watching the entire season, which I don't know how was possible since Big Brother Canada is not aired in the States. Gee Ian. Did you just admit to watching illegal video streams or downloading torrents? I won't tell. He closes with a real pearl of wisdom, "when you vote, remember for the rest of your life, you will have to live with saying you lost Big Brother to that person". No shit, Ian. Of course that also means that if you vote for the loser, you will have to live with the knowledge you are an even bigger loser.

Thanks for your input Ian. But you didn't have to. Really, you didn't.

The third and final comp is played between the winners of the first two comps, Godfrey and Ashleigh, and is a straight up trivia comp. The answer is either A or B. Blah, blah, blah. Godfrey takes an early lead, but Ashleigh catches up resulting in a tie. It goes to sudden death - you know, like a hockey game. This gets them nowhere, so they have to go to a tie-breaker question: How many hours did Sindy Withaness spend in the house on her return? Again with the frigging Sindy question! Why? Just to remind us of her being the darling of production? Was she a queen too? Ugh. The one with the closest answer, without going over, wins. Ashleigh answers 300, Godfrey 260. The correct answer is 284.

Hey at least Ashleigh didn't answer 2600.

Godfrey wins the final HoH, which means a

Another action-shot from the Great Giant God.

guaranteed seat in the final 2 and he gets to send either Ashleigh or Sarah to the Jury. For Godfrey, this is a tough decision. Ashleigh has a lot of friends and alliance members on the Jury who may vote emotionally. Sarah has fewer, but she has had a more strategic gameplay and has won more comps. Godfrey evicts Ashleigh, citing the fact that the two previous winners of Big Brother Canada - Jillian and Jon, were basically the result of showmances. At least he stayed true to his claim that this is no lovers' paradise. Thank God(frey)! I hope that's the end of that crap.

Then there is the introduction of the Jury, Ashleigh is brought out and the first four evictees are acknowledged. All standard stuff. The Jury asks their ridiculous questions. Sadly, most of them were asked of Sarah. And by ridiculous, I mean Willow's question to Sarah: "Was our relationship all game, or did I get to know the real Sarah Hanlon?" Good grief! You're supposed to be a superfan Willow, and you basically ask a breakup question? This sort of stuff just personalizes it and means you are going to vote emotionally! Sarah responds by saying it was real, but I wonder how Willow would have voted if Sarah admitted to at one time actually finding her sneaky and a bit of a creeper.

And then the vote. These guys still don't know that one of them will be cut from the Jury and their vote won't count. I guess they didn't want them to know in advance they may be casting a bad vote, and influence the way they vote. But still, it's kind of sad.

Jordan votes while Arisa and Ashleigh look on. Awkward.

Then Arisa announces the final twist of the season. There is that nasty, problematic 10 person Jury. Why they didn't see this coming is beyond me. They are shown the video of what went down in the Vault, including the sassy Ashleigh outburst at Godfrey. Arissa then announces the decision. Jordan, who really drew the short stick all season, gets the boot and is asked to go sit with the first four, non-jury group. Poor guy. When he voted, he said he wasn't going to "Topaz" the vote. Let's hope that in the future no one will ever have to say they just got "Jordaned". He kind of saw it coming knowing he was the first jury member and knew the least of events that transpired after his eviction. It was a completely logical decision, but still you can't help feeling sorry for the biggest superfan there. Arisa reveals that Jordan voted for Sarah.

More endless season recaps of alliances, showmances, twists and downtime in the house. Yawn.

Neither Brittnee nor Ashleigh's vote were read on air, as only 5 were needed to win. Arisa later revealed on Twitter they both voted for Sarah, making the final result 7 to 2. So here is my only consolation for Jordan. Ashleigh and Brittnee's vote were just as unnecessary as his evicted jury vote.

And that's that. Congratulations Sarah Hanlon! And just FYI, Sarah was the last of my 5 pre-season pics to win this season. So I have that. To be honest, I was secretly, hopelessly rooting for Godfrey.

God....forever gracious. Love it!

One last bit of info. We should find out in a few weeks if there will be a season 4 of Big Brother Canada. I am not so sure of it, mainly because of the drop in ratings when GlobalTV got their money-grabbing hands on it from Slice. Very iffy indeed. Maybe it should just return to Slice.

Friday, 15 May 2015

I wish they would stop with these 10 minute recaps at the beginning of the episode. Okay, I'm exaggerating...but not by much. It was 6 minutes this week. Yeah, Brittnee's got the power. Who will fall prey to Brittnee's super power? Geesh. Enough with this schtick. We get it. Just get on with it will ya?

When you get a secret super power, you turn into this.

I have nothing against Brittnee (don't you hate it when people preface their opinion with that), but her DR sessions are the worst ever. It's a major tell just how scripted these things can get. Brittnee's a terrible actress when presented with a script or told what to say by production. It's completely unbelievable - like she really doesn't want to say these things and has to force it. If we were to believe the edit she is getting, we would think she was some kind of evil megalomaniac mastermind, hell bent on taking over the world. But, she is much better at the art of improvising and has done an incredible job of pretending to campaign or covering up the fact she has this super power. Damn good job.

Do we feel sorry for Ashleigh - going about like her HoH will actually mean something? Not really. Not when she is only still in this game because of her huge meat shield, Zach. Not to mention her complaining all week it's HER HoH and she won't be controlled by Zach - then turns around and does his bidding. Bah!!! She makes me sad.

Brittnee's goal is to make sure she comes to the right decisions with her renoms, so she approaches each of the other HGs, acting as if she is worried about being evicted and campaigning to stay. Bruno

Or...from the lowest point in the house, and in the pit of despair.

- a close ally of Godfrey who is on the block, tells her he is undecided. Right. Then there's Sarah who only knows Brittnee won some kind of super power. She has no idea what it is or if will save Brittnee from eviction. Sarah asks Brittnee about next week, and if they will target Zach or Bruno. In reality, I think Sarah was trying to get a feel for this power. To see how Brittnee reacts to the idea of being around next week. Or, if this power was some sort of Coup d'Etat, who Brittnee was targeting. Almost as if they were talking in code. Brittnee's quick response? Bruno.

Meanwhile, Bruno is happy he has been getting closer with Zach ever since he took Captain Canada off the block during the triple eviction. Zach went from Bruno's meat shield to a F2 alliance in a matter of days. They call themselves The Generals. Fine. But don't take it too seriously.

There is still friction between Sarah and Bruno, despite the two apologizing to each other over the big snit during the Triple Eviction. Bruno can't seem to leave it alone, and goes to talk to Sarah in the Have Not room. They are joined by Brittnee. A fight ensues, ending with Bruno swearing and walking off in a storm.

There is the obligatory scene with Brittnee, alone, trying to figure out her best move. She plays out different scenarios with the various options available to her with this power. She really wants to "shake up the whole house" or "blow it up" or something, but she also wants to make sure her target goes home.

Time for the Eviction Vote. Oh wait. First there is an update on the Jury House. Cut to JP complaining about Sindy Withaness being high maintenance, but looking more pussy-whipped than anything else. Enter Bobby - the first of the Triple Evictees, who confesses his not-so-secret veto was fake. JP is in shock. Then Willow and Kevin show up. JP's head almost explodes, wondering how the hell that happened. Willow explains to Bobby there was never a Girls' Alliance. Then they all drown their sorrows with their own hot tub party. This is shaping up to be a bitter jury come Finale Night.

Time for the Eviction Vote.

Oh wait. Yeah there is that little matter of Brittnee's super secret power. Arisa makes the announcement. Yes, Sarah and Brittnee were voted in as Have Nots this week by Canada. But that's not the twist. Sarah and Brittnee competed for a power....blah, blah, blah. Brittnee won and must remove one of the nominations, OR she has the option to remove both. AND she gets to name the replacements. AND she can vote too.

Godfrey is in shock.

Brittnee saves herself, of course. Then she puts the necklace over Godfrey's head. He's still in shock so he is unable to do a pirouette in the air. The tension builds as we await her renom choices. Well, no tension from the live-feeders. Just from people who only watch the aired episodes. She puts Zach and Bruno up with the proviso that Zach is the pawn. I wish she didn't do that - the vote could have gone completely different. Instead, Bruno is evicted unanimously 4 to 0. Like JP, he took it like a champ realizing it was all in the name of the game.

This next HoH comp, called "100 Minutes of Hell" looks simple, but hides a lot of strategy. They

Looks like Zach needs a bigger coffin.

must lay down in plexiglass "coffins" and buzz in when they think 100 minutes have passed. The key is to buzz in after the HG whom YOU DO NOT WANT to be the next HoH. Basically, if you can count to 6,000 you should be the next HoH, but Big Brother won't let it be that simple. They will be given lots of distractions. Vermin, anyone?

This is another cliffhanger and we officially won't know the next HoH until Sunday's show.

Sunday, 10 May 2015

Finally, the big night is upon us. Three house guests will be heading off to the jury house.

But first...

We have to get a little background that will basically set the tone of the bloodbath. Because what's a good bloodbath without a good story to go with it?

Bobby is basically a goner, but he's not going to give up just yet - just like he never gave up on the Chop Shop. He's a pretty stubborn guy. He needs something, anything that he can use for ammo. So he sneaks out to the backyard and listens at the hot tub door. He overhears Ashley, Willow and Sarah bragging about how they chopped the Chop Shop. Alright!!! More proof there is a girls' alliance. Kinda. But it's something, and he can spin it to Zach to get that vote flipped.

But, tit for tat, Ashley, Willow, Sarah, and Pili take a turn listening to the guys at the hot tub. Funny how that happened. They hear Zach tell Godfrey, Bruno and Bobby he has a "good take on Ash." Oh, oh. Ashley's not very happy about this.

Now the strange thing here is that Brittnee is nowhere to be seen and isn't involved in any of this. Too bad, because if she was there she would have seen this for herself.

Despite all this, Bobby is evicted unanimously 7 to 0. So much for the Chop Shop. So much for Bruno's loyalty. So much for the guys trying to flip the vote against this so-called Girls' Alliance.

One down and two to go.

The HoH Comp is called "Talk of the Block" - a simple A or B trivia on past nominations and veto ceremonies. The winner is Brittnee - the one person who wasn't involved in all the guy vs girl drama.

Arisa tells them to head directly to the living room, where she tells them this week is very different and tonight, two more of them will be leaving. A wave of shock and fear spreads among them. Give me a break. They suspected something big was coming up. After all, there are still 9 of them left in the house, and there's only 3 weeks left. Brittnee is given only a few minutes to decide on her noms so she hauls Sarah into the storage room. Sarah tells her to prioritize the others by their threat level, so Brittnee nominates Zach, Kevin and Pili. It's clearly an attempt to break up the Diaper Alliance.

The PoV comp is called "BB Workshop". They must find gears with the names of evicted house guests, arrange them in order, then turn the gears to illuminate a lightbulb. Bruno wins. He chooses to use it to take Zach off the block.

Brittnee names Willow as the replacement nominee. Good for her game but bad, bad, bad for Sarah. Truth be told, Sarah didn't exactly press Brittnee back in the storage room how unhappy she would be if Willow went up on the block.

What happened next is something we didn't see. Before the vote, everyone was given a few minutes to decide on their vote. Bruno and Godfrey are talking in the storage room when Sarah comes in to quickly say, "We're saving Willow, right?" Bruno rips into her - bringing up the guy/girl ratio. That's a nice way to put it. Godfrey actually has to hold Bruno back. I know the stress must be getting to these guys, but this incident just bumped Bruno down to the bottom of my list to win. Bad form, Bruno. Bad form.

With 3 nominees, the vote is a vote to save, not evict. Sarah, Godfrey and Ashleigh vote to save Pilar. Zack and Bruno vote to save Willow. Of course, you're asking: why did Sarah not vote to save Willow? Remember what just happened in the storage room? Sarah was sure the guys were going to save Kevin, so she voted to save Pilar hoping at least one girl would survive the vote.

Kevin and Willow are evicted.

Be sure to watch the next episode on Sunday at 7 PM...we'll get to see the aftermath - including Bruno apologizing to Sarah, and both he and Zach continuing to call her a snake. I think these guys better look in the mirror. Geesh.

And one last thing. The last Twistos Twist of the season is the Have Not special power. Canada votes in 2 Have Nots who will compete to win the power - It's a Coup d'Etat. They MUST replace one of the nominees, but CAN also replace both.

Thursday, 7 May 2015

HGs remaining at start of week: Ashleigh; Brittnee; Godfrey; and Sarah.HoH: SarahNominees: Ashleigh and GodfreyPoV: Ashleigh. Used to save herself, thus becoming the only HG eligible to vote. Final Nominees: Godfrey and BrittneeBrittnee was evicted.

Week 1: All HGs were HoH, and had to vote for 2 people to nominate. Sindy and Risha were nominated. Sindy won PoV, saved herself and named Pilar as the new nominee. Canada was given 24 hours to vote. Risha was evicted, but put back into sequester for a KFC Twist.Week 3: Double Eviction Week. Round 1 is an Instant Eviction. Live Feeds down from Thursday afternoon April 2 to Sunday April 5. Presume Round 1 nominees, Instant Eviction, Round 2 HoH comp, nominees, Have Not comp, PoV comp & Ceremony will be carried out during this blackout. ***2nd Round: Kevin was nominated, but saved by Johnny. Bobby and Graig are final noms.Week 5: Sindy won the KFC First Five ticket back into the house, having immunity for 1 week.Week 7: Triple Eviction week confirmed on April 29th Eviction Episode. Round 1 is a regular eviction. Round 2 has 3 nominees, 1 PoV, and 2 evictions. The vote was a vote to save NOT evict.Week 8: Ashleigh nominated Sarah and Godfrey. Sarah used her PoV. Ashleigh nominated Brittnee as replacement. Brittnee won the secret HN superpower, taking herself and Godfrey off the block and nominating Bruno and Zach.Week 9: In Round 2, Brittnee had to break a tied vote.Week 10: Ashleigh was the only HG able to vote.Finale: Jury Member voted out by F3: JordanWinner Comp 1: GodfreyWinner Comp 2: AshleighWinner Comp 3: Godfrey. Godfrey evicted AshleighFinal 2: Godfrey and SarahSarah wins 5 to 2. Brittnee and Ashleigh's votes were not revealed on air, since nly 5 votes were needed to win - they were confirmed by Arisa Cox on Twitter.

Sunday, 3 May 2015

Brittnee is a bit pissed off because she is on the block for a third time, "I came into this house to play the game, not to be the perfect pawn." Good argument, if she was actually playing the game instead of sitting around and staring off into empty space. Sarah knows. She feels she is carrying the load for Brittnee's game - and she doesn't want it to become too obvious. Sarah tells her, "From now on, we don't talk."

Then there is Sindy. Sindy screwed up her game by coming on too strong, too early, got evicted then given a second ticket in - with a one week immunity. What did she do with that golden opportunity? Instead of laying low she decides to shake up the house AGAIN. Imbecility at it's finest. She openly says she is going after Bobby, and that right there is the problem. Nobody messes with Bruno's right-hand man. Nobody.

No wonder they are both on the block.

BB decides that these guys spend too much time lazing about talking strategy way too much. The same things over and over again. Enough! Time to get these children out of the hot tub and up exercising. Their task is to Flintstone-power a car across Canada in teams of two. This also allows some HGs the opportunity to talk strategy with others they wouldn't necessarily do so with. BB also throws in a couple of obstacles along the way. Kevin and Sarah have to drive through a snowstorm. Willow and Ashleigh are stopped by a policeman (Kevin) for drunk driving. They obviously didn't heed the warning, because they later hit Marsha the Moose. Don't worry. She's fine. Moose are well known for surviving a hit by even a huge truck. Although Godfrey suggests they could cook her up because that's some fine meat there. Zach and Sindy must camp out in sleeping bags when the car conveniently breaks down. By "convenient", I mean that this was a great time for Sindy Withaness to do a little campaigning with Zach, trying to suggest that she is a better choice than Brittnee to keep around. I don't care for the Zach character, but I did feel sorry for him, having to listen to this relentless droning. When he finally rolls over and says, "let me think about it", I think what he really meant was, "shut the hell up, I want to get to sleep now."

Willow is so upset she hit Marsha, then tells us Marsha gave her a bottle of champagne. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. That is not what happened. Sarah - a Have Not who is not allowed to have extras, went to the DR and requested it for he date with Willow. BB gave it to her and this started a fury on Twitter and Facebook. Sounds like production is covering up with this explanation, BUT do they really think we didn't notice?

All the production interference in the world couldn't stop Sindy being evicted by unanimous vote. The girl didn't learn anything at all from her first eviction.

The comp for the week 7 HoH is called "Retribution". Its pretty simple. They have to rate - on a scale of 1 to 100, how likely statements about Sindy are. The HG with the largest discrepancy is eliminated, and if there is a tie, Sindy gets to decide the next HoH. Isn't that special. And because this episode ended with a cliffhanger after the first question, we get to see Sindy one more time on Sunday, May 3. Isn't that special?

Oh and one more thing. Week 7 will be a triple eviction week - the first one ever. Round 1 is a normal eviction, while Round 2 calls for 3 nominees and 2 people evicted. So prepare for one side of the house to take a hit this week...a real bad hit. And there is some speculation this week will see that thing in the Have Not Room rise from the floor and come into play. I suspect we will see the feeds down for at least a whole day, maybe Wednesday.

Amazing Race Canada 5

A little bit about me...

This whole blogging thing started when I first heard the Bachelor franchise was coming to Canada. "Geez, screw that. Someone has to make fun of this stuff," I said to myself.

So, I started. Then the landslide began. Along came Big Brother Canada and The Amazing Race Canada.

I actually don't watch a lot of TV but when I do, I have been known to get a tad....involved. Besides TARC and BBCan, I can be found in my spot watching The Walking Dead, FearTWD, The Big Bang Theory, GoT, and Outlander. Others come and go as TPTB see fit. R.I.P Mad Men and Downton Abbey.